1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a split rim for a pneumatic tire assembled by one rim section and the other rim section, a method of assembling a rim/tire assembly to have a rim/tire assembly by assembling a pneumatic tire and the rim sections, and a method and a device for installing the rim/tire assembly onto a member to be attached, for inspection of a pneumatic tire or the like.
2. Background Art
In general, a method for inspecting a pneumatic tire has been conducted by a method described in JP-A-5-187952. That is, after a pneumatic tire has been conveyed between an upper rim section and a lower rim section of an inspecting machine such as a uniformity-testing machine, the lower rim section is raised to bring the lower rim section to be seated on a lower bead portion of the pneumatic tire. After this seating, the lower rim section is further raised till the upper rim section is seated on an upper bead portion of the pneumatic tire. Next, after filling a fluid between the pneumatic tire and the upper and the lower rim sections, the pneumatic tire and the upper and the lower rim sections are rotated integrally about a rotation center during which the pneumatic tire is inspected.
With this method, however, the seating of the pneumatic tire on the upper and the lower rim sections and the fluid filling as a preparation work for the inspection are performed in the inspecting machine. Thus, even if the inspection time itself is short, a cycle time from conveying-in of the pneumatic tire to that of the next pneumatic tire becomes long. As a result, working efficiency is deteriorated, which is a problem.
As first proposal to solve such a problem, as described in International Publication No. WO 03/048718, such a tire inspecting method is known that, at an assembling station, after a one-side bead portion of the pneumatic tire is seated on a one-side rim section and the other-side bead portion on the other-side rim section, these one-side and the other side rim sections are fastened together to form a split rim on which the pneumatic tire is attached, that is, a rim/tire assembly, and then, the rim/tire assembly is conveyed to a tire inspecting machine installed at an inspecting station, where the rim/tire assembly is coupled to the rotating shaft of the tire inspecting machine. Next, the rotating shaft and the rim/tire assembly are rotated integrally, during which the pneumatic tire is inspected. As a split rim made of the above-mentioned one-side and the other-side rim sections, a halved rim section that is conventionally used when attaching a pneumatic tire on an industrial vehicle or the like can be adopted.
As a second proposal to solve the above problem, as described in JP-A-2003-240682, such a method is also known that comprises a process for conveying a rim/tire assembly made of a pneumatic tire, a one-side rim section on which a one-side bead portion of the pneumatic tire is seated, and the other-side rim section on which the other-side bead portion of the pneumatic tire is seated and which is detachably connected to the one-side rim section onto a member to be attached constituting a part of an inspecting machine, and a process for having a first fluid passage formed in the member to be attached to communicate to a second fluid passage formed in the rim/tire assembly by loading the conveyed rim/tire assembly to a predetermined position of the member to be attached so that a fluid is introduced between the one-side and the other-side rim sections and the pneumatic tire through these first and the second fluid passages.
However, as for the halved rim sections as shown in the first proposal, the one-side and the other-side rim sections are fastened to each other by holding inner flanges formed at the inner ends of the one-side and the other-side rim sections in the axial direction, respectively, with a bolt and a nut. Therefore, the assembling accuracy of the one-side and the other-side rim sections after the fastening, especially, the concentricity deteriorates, thereby adversely affecting the inspection results, which is another problem.
As for the second proposal, too, when attaching the rim/tire assembly onto the member to be attached, the rim/tire assembly is merely loaded on the member to be attached. Thus, attachment position of the rim/tire assembly is likely to be offset with respect to the member to be attached, and also, there is a fear of slippery in the rotating direction between the rim/tire assembly and the member to be attached at inspection. Therefore, this proposal also has a problem that the inspection results are adversely affected as in the first proposal.
The present invention has been made in view of the above problems and has an object to provide a split rim for a tire, a method of assembling a rim/tire assembly, and a method and a device for installing the rim/tire assembly which can obtain inspection results with high accuracy, in inspecting a tire by installing the rim/tire assembly which is an assembly of the split rim comprising the one-side and the other-side rim sections and the tire onto a member to be attached.